Supply Chain Management

Assignment 2 â€“ Empirical Assessment of Marketing Strategy Alignment
Remember what you learned from the Wal-Mart/Bon Ami article about the importance of aligning processes and strategies across supply chains. Green et al. (2012) test the proposition that aligning (integrating and coordinating) marketing processes across the supply chain improves both supply chain and organizational performance. Read the article and answer the following questions.

Introduction
1. According to the article, what are supply chains?
2. What does supply chain management require?
3. List the business processes that must be integrated and coordinated.
4. What is the key to successful SCM?
5. What is the effect of successful SCM?
6. What is the primary responsibility of supply chain managers?

Theoretical Foundation
7. Look at the theoretical model in Figure 1 on page 1010. Note the variables/constructs in the model: marketing strategy alignment, supply chain performance, and organizational performance (financial and marketing). Based on the model, how do the authors believe that the marketing strategy alignment impact both supply chain and organizational performance?
8. How do the authors define each of the variables/constructs?
Methodology
9. Review the survey items displayed in Table 1 on page 1012. Which group of experts did the researchers ask to complete the questionnaire? How many experts provided data?
10. Look at the correlations in Table 4. Remember what you know about correlations. Based on the correlations, are the study variables related? Are the relationships positive and significant as hypothesized?

Results
11. Look at the results presented in Figure 2. While the authors used a sophisticated statistical methodology (Structural Equation Modelling), the numbers on the arrows can be interpreted just like standardized regression coefficients (betas). Based on the betas and t-values, which of the hypotheses are supported by this research? A t-value greater than 3.00 indicates a significant relationship as measured by the beta. Which hypothesis is not supported?
12. Follow the arrows along the path of the significant betas. List the order in which the variables impact each other based on the results in the Figure 2.
Conclusions
13. What general conclusion do the authors draw based on their findings?
14. Does marketing strategy alignment directly impact supply chain performance?
15. Does supply chain performance directly impact financial performance?
16. Does supply chain performance directly impact marketing performance?
17. Does marketing performance directly impact financial performance?
18. Now, consider the anecdotal evidence presented in the Wal-Mart/Bon Ami article and the empirical results presented in the Marketing Strategy Alignment paper. Based on what you learned from these two article, what have you learned about the importance of aligning (integrating and coordinating) processes and strategies across supply chains in terms of impact on supply chain and organizational performance?

Supply Chain Management Assignment 2 â€“ Empirical Assessment of...